U.S. Budget Deficit Grows $1 Million Every 11 Seconds
Friday, March 12, 2010
	Between enormous expenditures and sagging revenues, the U.S. government in February managed to enlarge the deficit by $1 million every 11 seconds. February went down as the worst ever for monthly shortfalls, at $220.9 billion. This total was 14% higher than February 2009, which set the previous record. February is traditionally a bad month for deficits because that is when the government sends out tax refund checks.   The government is on pace to set the record for annual budget deficits, with 2010 figuring to be $1.56 trillion. Last year, it was $1.4 trillion. Things probably won’t get better in 2011, which is expected to post at least a $1 trillion gap. If this happens, it will mark the first time in U.S. history that the country endured three straight years of $1 trillion-plus deficits. -Noel Brinkerhoff   U.S. Monthly Budget Deficit Balloons to a Record (by Meena Thiruvengadam and Jeff Bater, Wall Street Journal) Budget Deficit Sets Record in February (by Martin Crutsinger, Associated Press) Monthly Treasury Statement (Financial Management Service) (pdf)

The Payday Lender Senator: Corker of Tennessee
Thursday, March 11, 2010
	Having received thousands of dollars in contributions from the $6.5 billion-a-year payday lending industry, U.S. Senator Bob Corker (R-Tennessee) has worked to keep payday lenders out of new legislation that seeks to crack down on the financial industry.   The Senate is considering the creation of a new consumer protection agency that could go after debt collectors and other predatory financial companies, but not businesses that issue short-term, high interest loans to individuals short on cash before their next paycheck. The payday loan industry was a part of the new plan until Corker convinced Senator Christopher Dodd (D-Connecticut), chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, to water down the language affecting companies like Check Into Cash.   That business was founded by W. Allan Jones of Tennessee, a longtime friend and financial supporter of Corker. Check Into Cash is the country’s third-largest payday-lending chain. Jones, his relatives and employees have given $31,000 to Corker since 2001.   Senator Richard Durbin (D-Illinois) is pushing legislation to cap the annual interest rate for payday loans at 36%. The typical current rate is 421%. -Noel Brinkerhoff   Corker Shaping Payday Loan Rules in Financial Reform Package (by Dave Flessner, Chattanooga Times Free Press) A Consumer Bill Gives Exemption on Payday Loans (by Sewell Chan, New York Times) Senator Corker Donor Could Benefit From Payday-Lender Exemption (by Jonathan D. Salant and Phil Mattingly, Bloomberg) Senators Owned Stock in Bailed-Out Banks (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)

Army vs. Lockheed Martin in Battle to Cancel Missile Defense System
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
	The U.S. Army doesn’t want it, but the Department of Defense is saying: Yes, you do. The Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) would be scuttled if Army commanders had their way, saying the missile defense program is too costly to develop, with a price tag of $19 billion. However, Pentagon officials and others in the Obama administration want MEADS, which is being developed in partnership with Germany and Italy, because killing the program could upset relations with the two European allies.   While Army staff insist the missile defense is too expensive to keep working on, Defense Department personnel argue it would be too expensive to stop development. That’s because the contract that the Pentagon signed with Lockheed Martin and other defense contractors would require the government to pay $550 million to $1 billion in penalties to the companies.   MEADS is intended to replace the aging Patriot missile system, which has been around since the 1980s. -Noel Brinkerhoff   Pentagon Resists Army's Desire to Stop Development of MEADS Missile System (by Craig Whitlock, Washington Post)

Sentencing Reform Reduces Prison Population without Increasing Crime
Tuesday, March 09, 2010
	It is possible to get criminals out of prison and keep them from returning to a life of crime, argue reformers calling for changes in prison sentencing. A new report from The Sentencing Project cites statistics from four states where lawmakers and corrections officials have reduced prison populations and at the same time lowered crime rates.   According to Downscaling Prisons: Lessons from Four States, Kansas, Michigan, New Jersey and New York figured out ways to help convicts instead of just throwing them behind bars. New York lowered its prison population by 20%, Michigan 12%, New Jersey 19% and Kansas 5%.   Leaders in these four states successfully moved thousands of prisoners into drug rehab programs and/or improved parole systems that kept felons from resorting to old ways and landing back in jail. The most common strategy was to reduce mandatory sentencing for drug offenses.   This accomplishment came while other states using the same old incarceration methods saw their inmate totals grow by 40% or more between 2001 and 2008. Those states were West Virginia (57%), Minnesota (51%), Arizona (49%), Kentucky (45%), Florida (44%) and Indiana (41%). -Noel Brinkerhoff   States Begin to Fix Our Prison System (by David Swanson, Public Record) Downscaling Prisons: Lessons from Four States (by Judith Greene and Marc Mauer, Sentencing Project) (pdf) The State of Sentencing 2009: Developments in Policy and Practice (by Nicole D. Porter, Sentencing Project) (pdf)

Judge Allows Torture Lawsuit against Donald Rumsfeld to Proceed
Monday, March 08, 2010
	Two Americans who claim they were tortured in Iraq have been allowed to move forward with their lawsuit against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Donald Vance and Nathan Ertel say they were detained and interrogated in 2006 while working for Shield Group Security (SGS), an Iraqi-owned security firm. Vance and Ertel say they became suspicious that SGS employees were illegally providing weapons to private Iraqis, and they reported what they had seen to the FBI and other U.S. government officials. However, they were themselves labeled “security detainees” and held incommunicado by the U.S. military. Vance and Ertel allege that they were thrown into cages, strip searched and questioned using “physically and mentally coercive tactics” before being released.   Rumsfeld is the subject of the suit because he approved the techniques used at the bases where Vance and Ertel were held, and “that individuals who issue an order to engage in unconstitutional conduct can themselves be held liable for that conduct. In other words, a superior officer may be considered personally involved in a constitutional violation when his subordinates carried out such a violation pursuant to his policy directive.”   Although two of Vance’s and Ertel’s counts against Rumsfeld were thrown out, U.S. District Judge Wayne Andersen allowed the third one to go forward. Anderson said the two plaintiffs submitted enough testimony to warrant hearing evidence of exactly what happened, adding his ruling “represents a recognition that federal officials may not strip citizens of well settled constitutional protections against mistreatment simply because they are located in a tumultuous foreign setting.” -Noel Brinkerhoff, David Wallechinsky   Judge Refuses to Dismiss Suit Against Rumsfeld (by Jordan Weissmann, The BLT) Ill. Judge Won't Toss Torture Suit Naming Rumsfeld (by Mike Robinson, Associated Press) Donald Vance and Nathan Ertel v. Donald Rumsfeld (U.S. District Court, Northern District Illinois) (pdf) Testimony of Donald Vance at Senate Democratic Policy Committee Hearing (pdf)

Obama Administration Withdraws Plans for Yucca Mountain Nuclear Dump
Sunday, March 07, 2010
	Twenty three years after the federal government targeted it as the nation’s underground dump for nuclear waste, Yucca Mountain, Nevada, is headed for closure. President Barack Obama followed through on his campaign promise to shut down the controversial site by instructing the U.S. Department of Energy to formally withdraw its license application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the final step that would have led to Yucca Mountain being approved to accept waste from nuclear reactors around the country.   Concerns over the risk of radiation leaking from the underground repository into water supplies produced heated opposition from politicians in Nevada, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D). As the top man in the Senate, Reid’s cutoff of funding for the project and the Energy Department’s pulling of its license application “with prejudice” makes it unlikely Yucca will ever open for business.   However, Nevada officials won’t rest easy until Congress amends the federal law adopted in 1987 that officially listed Yucca Mountain as the country’s sole repository for nuclear waste.   The Obama administration is forming a commission to study other possible solutions for storing the waste that’s been piling up for decades. Former Democratic congressman Lee Hamilton and one-time national security advisor Brent Scrowcroft will lead the 18-month effort. Also, the Energy Department is merging the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, which oversaw Yucca Mountain, with the Office of Nuclear Energy. -Noel Brinkerhoff   Yucca Mountain Foes Hail Historic Step to Kill Nuclear Waste Depository (by Lisa Mascaro, Las Vegas Sun) Obama to Zero Out Yucca Mountain Funding, Pull License (by Lisa Mascaro, Las Vegas Sun)

Justice Dept. Investigates Voting Machine Merger for Possible Anti-Trust Violation
Saturday, March 06, 2010
	Valued at $5 million, the September 2009 purchase of Premier Election Solutions Inc. by Election Systems & Software Inc. (ES&S) was not something that immediately captured headlines. But what the deal lacked in purchase price, it made up for in controversy, because the merger left ES&S in control of nearly 70% of the nation’s voting machines market.   ES&S, the nation’s top seller of voting machines, wanted to buy No. 2 competitor Premier, a subsidiary of Diebold Inc. This attracted the attention of anti-trust lawyers in the U.S. Department of Justice. After several months of reviewing the deal, the government agreed to sanction it—as long as ES&S agreed to sell off its newest voting system (Assure 1.2) to another competitor, probably Hart InterCivic Inc. -Noel Brinkerhoff   Justice Dept. Probes Voting Machine Merger as Midterm Elections Loom and Questions Multiply (by Pete Yost, Associated Press) Voting-Machine Deal to Be Cleared by U.S. (by Thomas Catan, Wall Street Journal)

8 Senators Who Voted Against Jobless Benefits Come from States with High Unemployment
Friday, March 05, 2010
	Putting aside the economic reality facing thousands of their constituents, eight Republican U.S. senators voted this week against the 30-day extension of unemployment benefits for Americans still looking for work. The legislation was held up primarily by one man—Senator Jim Bunning (R-Kentucky), who filibustered the extension because he said it would add to the nation’s already enormous debt. But after enduring considerable criticism from Democrats, and even some Republicans, Bunning relented and allowed the bill to come up for a vote. The Senate approved the measure 78-19.   Facing South, the magazine of the Institute for Southern Studies, points out that eight of the GOP senators who opposed the benefits extension are from states where unemployment is higher than the national average. The eight are: Bunning and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky (10.7% unemployment); John Ensign of Nevada (13%); Jim DeMint of South Carolina (12.6%); Richard Burr of North Carolina (11.2%); Jeff Sessions of Alabama (11%); and Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker of Tennessee (10.9%). The national average is 9.7%. -Noel Brinkerhoff   Senators Who Voted Against Extending Jobless Benefits Hail from States Devastated by Recession (by Chris Kromm, Facing South)

Families of Murdered U.S. Missionaries Sue Chiquita for Supporting Terrorists
Thursday, March 04, 2010
	Doing business in Columbia has proven to be expensive for food company Chiquita, which has paid millions of dollars in ransoms to terrorists and now is being sued by Americans whose relatives were killed by the same groups. Chiquita’s payment of at least $25 million to organizations like leftist guerrillas FARC to protect its employees has resulted in lawsuits against the corporation by the families of murdered American missionaries who contend the company’s deal-making amounted to supporting terrorism.   Tania Julin is among the plaintiffs going after Chiquita. Her husband, Mark Rich, was abducted by FARC in 1993 while the couple and their children were performing missionary work in neighboring Panama. It was years before Tania Julin found out her husband and other kidnapped missionaries were executed by the guerillas.   Her lawsuit (Julin et al. v. Chiquita Brands Int’l) is moving forward in a federal court in south Florida after a judge rejected Chiquita’s motion to dismiss the case. Julin is suing on the basis of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1991, which permits American citizens and survivors to be compensated for injuries resulting from international terrorism.   In 2007, Chiquita was sued for giving money to the right-wing paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Columbia. It settled out of court. -Noel Brinkerhoff   Banana Land and the Corporate Death Squad Scandals (by Charlie Cray, CorpWatch) Chiquita Finding Bittersweet for Families of Men Killed in Colombia (by Arthur Brice, CNN) Julin et al. v Chiquita Brands Int’l, Inc. (Osen LLC)